It’s an AI Invasion People!

While some people are living in denial, others are chewing on their fingernails in fear, and yet others are dwelling in complete ignorance, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gradually but definitely beating our pants off in the labour market and, believe or not, lots of people are excited about it.

Admittedly, the time when AI completely takes over from humans is still quite far in the future, but then, many of the world’s biggest brands today have already started enlisting the help of AI in running many of their systems to ensure a marked improvement and better marketing performance. For instance, many brands seem to have developed a knack for using voice assistants, chatbots, as well as other similar smart options.

Even brands like Sephora and Nordstrom have started utilizing AI, albeit in slightly different ways. While Nordstrom mainly focuses on chatbots and how they can improve customer service, Sephora is putting big hopes on their Virtual Artist AI, which is definitely something you should pay attention to if you’ve recently gotten your hands on and plan to purchase makeup with it.

The app makes choosing cosmetics much easier than before, by matching particular shades of makeup to a photo of your choosing. In other words, all you have to do is upload a selfie, and the app will help you choose a brand that is perfect for your complexion and facial features.

However, although AI is remarkably intelligent, it still hasn’t quite earned the badge of trust from us skeptical humans. In fact, only a meager 7% of people would consider purchasing a product after chatting with a bot. However, this hasn’t fazed a number of companies, and many of them have found other ways to harness the unique abilities of AI. But, before we go into how brands are currently using AI to their advantage, let’s take a quick look at some stats.

Right now, there is a 60% of customers who use navigation apps powered by AI. Some of these apps include Google Maps and Waze, which means you’re probably a part of that 60%. Also, by using CRM, 75% of companies have perfected their AI strategies so much that they discovered that driving personalized messages to customers using AI is way more effective than just pushing generic content.

Aside increasing profit, some companies (44% of them) also use AI to look out for you by ensuring that your transactions are kept secure. Projecting into the future, experts say that 38% of Americans risk losing jobs in 2030 due to AI; plus, only 15% of customer-enterprise interactions will require human intervention in two years.

So, how do big brands use AI? Well, for one, Netflix uses it to personalize movie recommendations to you based on what you like. Google, of course, uses it even more with its self-driving cars and voice recognition technology. (Fun fact: the average watch time on YouTube increased by up to 50% after AI was used to recommend videos to the audience).

Finally, even more commendable is the fact that Facebook actually uses it to help identify people with suicidal tendencies. Go Mark!

Fun Fact: a fraction of the time you thought you were chatting with an important business executive, you were probably chatting with his digital assistant. The 72% of them use it nowadays.